Mass Effect: Dark Beginnings
by Domehead900
Summary: Commander Tarius Shepard, a human in the alliance military, joined up on a simple mission in order to try and reclaim his life from the chaos it had become. Little did he know that this simple mission was much more and would become the beginnings of his true life. A darkness is arising in the galaxy. Can Tarius hold it back? Or will it consume him?
1. Chapter 1

Mass Effect: Dark Beginnings

Author's Note:

I'd like to start this story by stating that this is the story of my character Tarius. Tarius is actually a Sith lord I came up with years ago. So, even though this is a Mass Effect fan story there may end up being some Star Wars references in it. Nothing big but I figured I owed readers a fair warning. So now here's the story.

Prologue

It had been a week since Saren had encountered the giant being that called itself Sovereign and he still was trying to make sense of what it had told him. The being or machine or God or whatever it was had called itself a reaper, with enough blandness to tell Saren just how little it cared for that name. It had then told him of the fact that there was an entire armada of other reapers that waited in "dark space". Then it told him of the fact that they were trapped in "dark space" and that it wanted Saren to help it. It told him all this after threatening him with death for discovering it. Yet how was he to know his target would lead him there only to be killed in a cave in caused by the reaper's movement? In the end it didn't matter, he agreed to the reaper's request easily enough. It was only when he got away that he had to think of why he said yes to Sovereign. In the end he realized that it was Sovereign's story of the reapers and the fact that he made it very clear that the reapers would return, and that it was hopeless to fight, that had convinced him to join Sovereign. "Perhaps if I make them see organics can be useful, then they will let us live. They are machines after all, and therefore, they think like machines." Yet, the doubts remained. It did not matter though, he was right, he knew it, he just had to find the conduit and he will have proven his worth and therefore, the worth of organics. But first he would have to deal with this human they had chosen to possibly become a spectre. This was the reason he had been thinking of Sovereign. This file had been brought to his "desk" and was placed in front of him. A file containing info on a mission to retrieve a prothean beacon and observe a human being considered for spectre candidacy. "This beacon could hold the rest of the information I need to find the conduit." At that moment he made a decision. He states that he could not observe the young candidate at this time but he would gladly take over should whatever spectre that gets the job have something happen to him. "We shall see how things go for you young human when you lose the beacon." He would have to inform Sovereign that he may have found the rest of the info. He was pretty upset when Saren had told him that the first beacon didn't have all the info. For a moment Saren had been sure Sovereign would shoot him but Sovereign had calmed down and told him to find another beacon and here was one being handed to him on a silver platter. No one and nothing would stop him, not even this... Shepard.

Shepard was getting impatient. "Well that's an under statement." He mumbled. He had been called to speak with Anderson 5 hours ago and was still waiting. "Can I enter yet?!" He screamed at Anderson's assistant. "I told you that you can go in when he calls for you." At that very moment Anderson poked his head out of his office. "Has Shepard shown up yet? I've been waiting 5 hours." The assistant was very confused now. "You said to wait for you to call for him sir." Anderson looked at her flabbergasted. "I told you to send him in once he got here!" By now Shepard just wanted them to shut up. They were making him angry and that was making the voice come out and tell him to kill them both. The voice always got stronger when he got angry. He could still remember the first time it spoke and how he had tried to fight and— No! He wouldn't think about it. He started rubbing his head which caused Anderson to look at him. "Are you all right commander?" "Yes. I just like rubbing my head for no reason! Of course I'm not all right! I haves headache from all your damn yelling!" And there it was the snap caused by voice, and from the way they were looking at them, his eyes had probably done their usual red flash. "I'm sorry commander for keeping you waiting and not using manners. Please, come into my office." They entered Anderson's office and after the door was closed Anderson told him the truth. "I actually did tell her to wait for me to call you in but I wanted to see how easily you would snap." Now that the voice was gone, for now, he could think clearly. "You wanted to see my eyes didn't you?" Immediately Anderson didn't have to answer. His face told Shepard everything he needed to know. "It's all right. Your not the first one. You're one of the few that lived but that's not a surprise." Anderson stared at Shepard for a long time before responding. "You're so casual about all the people you've killed." "I thought that was a good thing in my line of work." Again Anderson stared at him. He was so calm after being so angry, like someone else had taken control of him earlier. He had heard the stories of course but he couldn't believe how true they were. "The reason I called you here commander is that I need someone for a mission, nothing big, just a shake down run but I figured it would be good for you to come along. You know, have a little down time. According to your file all you've done is work for the past 5 years." Shepard was shocked at the change in subject. "You know, you may be right. This job sounds easy and like it would be a good break for me." "So you accept?" "Absolutely." Shepard was a little surprised, Anderson lived up to the stories about him to. "See you on the ship commander." Both of them were surprised because they learned that even with all the bad thing s about them they still liked the other.

Author's Note(continued): When I started writing this prologue, I wanted to do something that hadn't been done or that I hadn't seen done. In the end I decided to talk about how Saren met Sovereign and how Shepard got recruited for the mission. These were scenes that I had never seen done and I thought would be fun to do because they're never talked about in the game.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Anderson stood and stared at the list of candidates for the specters. He was trying to figure out how they chose Shepard over the others. Especially Bardone, the hero of Elysium. It was a good thing that they chose to look at a list and not talk to them all at once. Shepard beat Bardone pretty badly last time they met. Same with Johnson who was with Shepard's brother John on Akuze and was the only survivor. It wasn't Johnson's fault that he grew up on the streets of earth and knew how to survive. Then there was Jackson. Whose family got killed on Mindoir. If he hadn't killed a slaver and taken up his gun then there would have been nothing to save when the alliance got there, and he was barely more than a teenager at the time. Anderson sighed. Shepard was the last person he expected to make the list even if he was very good at his job. His past was the reason that it would have been bad to bring in Jackson. Jackson had been part of his squad on Torfan. Jackson knew a secret about that day. A secret about Shepard, but he wouldn't tell it. Whatever that secret was, it had caused great tension between them. The rest of the list was filled with other candidates that weren't as impressive. No, in the end Shepard was the best choice.

Anderson's list:

Washington

Hanson

Johnson - Highly recommended

Jacobson

Tinklepaugh

Georgia - Missing in action

Carolina - advised against

Texas - Mentally unstable

Burns - Great leader, bad soldier (not allowed a sniper)

Tucker - good follower(if he can keep his mouth shut), bad soldier (Not allowed sniper after incident with Texas. Ships can't handle that much damage.)

Caboose - bad with teams (killed the last three), NO TANKS!(too emotionally attached, caused death of first team member)

Iglesias - no longer have armor in his size

Bardone - Highly recommended

Moore - all three Moore brothers have a reputation for being unstable with crazy combat and eating habits

Darson - friend of Bardone, up for darkfall initiative

Ryant - small, fast, and willing to fight enemies twice his size (100 Turian, 50 asari, 20 salarian, 15 krogan, and 2 yahg kills recorded.)

Sparrow - insistant we remember that his rank is captain, never shuts up, has a strange taste for rum

Jackson - Highly recommended

Shepard - Recommended

Bueller

Sheen

Bond

Shepard was walking to the ships cockpit while Anderson was looking over the list and now stood in the cockpit behind the pilot named Joker. That's what he was pretty sure it was at least. He didn't really care. He had already learned he was a pain in the ass and he already got on the voices nerves. It had already suggested snapping his neck more than once. Then there was the spectre. A damn turian. If there was one thing he hated, it was turians and all the other races. This turian was named Nihlus and wouldn't stop following Shepard. He had more than once thought of snapping his neck too.

"I hate that Guy." Joker stated. This brought Shepard back to reality and out of his thoughts.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment. So you hate him?" The copilot responded.

"Remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a point the size of a pinhead. So that's amazing! Besides, specters are trouble. I don't like having him onboard. Call me paranoid."

"Your paranoid," the copliot replied, "The council helped fund this project so they have the right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yep that is the official story, but only an idiot believes the official story."

"Will you two just shut the fuck up and fly the ship!" Shepard screamed.

"Wow. Someone has anger issues." The pilot replied.

Suddenly the intercom went off with Anderson speaking over it. "_Joker_! _Send_ _the_ _commander_ _to_ _the_ _com_ _room_. _I'd_ _like_ _to_ _speak_ _with_ _him_."

"Yes sir. And get ready, I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"_He's_ _already_ _here_ _lieutenant_." Anderson replied as Joker shook his head.

"Did you hear him commander?"

"Yeah. And it sounds like you pissed him off."

"Captain always sounds like that when he's talking to me."

"Why am I not surprised?" Shepard said as he walked away.

On his way to the com room Shepard passed the navigator. Pressly he believed his name was but it didn't matter to him. Then he passed Dr. Chakwas talking to a marine who the voice had also marked as a pain in the ass. As he passed them he discovered that they were talking about Eden Prime and the spectres. He then passed them and entered the com room. Where not the captain, but Nihlus awaited him.

"Where's the captain?"

"Not here. I wanted to speak to you first."

"Like that's going to happen."

"It will. Now tell me about this colony we're going to I've heard it's quite beautiful."

"You come along to admire the planet? Or do you just want to mess with my head?"

"Don't be an ass. Is the Alliance truly ready for this?"

"I think it's time we tell the commander what's really going on."

"This is more than just a simple shakedown run."

"Well no shit Sherlock."

"Excavation teams on Eden Prime dug up something. It turned out to be a prothean beacon."

"And I give a shit why?"

"We're on our way to retrieve it." Nihlus said.

"That's not all Nihlus is here for. He's also here to observe you for spectre candidacy."

"What?! Who the fuck made that choice because I sure as hell didn't make it!"

"It was made by Udina, Hackett, and me. Besides this will help the alliance commander."

He wasn't happy about it but Shepard knew he was right. He still didn't like the fact that the turian would be watching him, but he would put up with it.

"Fine. Now what's the plan?"

"You'll be part of the ground team. Secure the beacon and get it back to the ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe."

"Fine. Lets get this over with." The voice was very agitated and it was giving him a headache.

"We should be getting close to Eden—"

"_Captain!" _Joker broke in over the loudspeaker.

"What is it Joker?"

"_Urgent_ _message_ _from_ _Eden_ _Prime_. _Your_ _gonna_ _wanna_ _see_ _this_ _sir._"

"Bring it up on the screen."

The screen then lit up with with the video from Eden Prime showing it from the first person view of a soldier. It showed a woman in Phoenix armor tell the soldier recording to get down and then firing her weapon at some enemies. He then looked at some other marines who were also firing their weapons at an unseen enemy. Suddenly a loud noise broke out through the air, and all the soldiers looked up. Upon seeing this the soldier recording looked at what they were looking at and saw...

Shepard couldn't believe what he was seeing. On the screen was an enormous dreadnought shaped like a giant squid thing. All around this "squid" was red "lightning". The screen then went to static and Shepard was finally able to take his eyes away from it.

"_That's it. Cuts out after that no com chatter at all._"

"Freeze at 38.5," the screen returned to the dreadnought. Anderson stared at it for a few seconds and then said "Status report."

"_Seventeen minutes out sir. We're the only military force in the area._"

"Take us in fast and quiet. This mission just got a whole lot more complicated."

"A small strike team should be able to move quickly without drawing to much attention." Nihlus said. "It's our best chance to secure the beacon."

"Grab your gear and meet us in the cargo hold." Anderson said to Nihlus. He then turned to Shepard who was still staring at the screen. "Commander." Shepard's eyes continued to stare at the screen. Anderson, thinking Shepard is just ignoring him, tries to get his attention again. "Shepard." Shepard went on staring. There was something about the ship that made him feel a certain way. Like if he controlled it then he would have ultimate power. Yet even though he had never felt it before, he felt like he had. Anderson, realizing something was up, tried the last thing he could think of. "Tarius?" That got Shepard's attention immediately. His face contorted in emotional pain, his hands clenched, and his biotics flared. No one had called him that in years. No one since...

"Yes, sir?"

"You all right?" Anderson felt the first ping of sympathy for Shepard. The look on his face had caused that.

"Fine... Sir"

Anderson knew that wasn't true but he moved on anyway. "Tell Jenkins and Alenko to suit up. Your going in."

"Yes sir." Shepard took one last look at the screen before turning around and walking out, thinking about ultimate power.

Author's Note:

First, I'd like to say that in the prologue I still haven't fixed the problem stated in BlueSpartan107's (my brother's) comment. I went to fix it and did but it didn't update when I hit the button, that I know of. Second, I ran out of room to type my explanation of the chapter with the apparently I'm using so I will be using a different one from now on and will have the explanation in the author's note at the beginning of the next chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

As I said here is what I wanted to say in my last author's note. When I started writing chapter 1, I wanted to change some dialogue and introduce some things about Tarius. As shown at the beginning of the chapter, I thought it would be interesting to say that Anderson didn't want Shepard to be the first spectre at first because he was the butcher of Torfan. I also wanted to show one of those connections to his real life as a sith lord, hence the fact that he felt like he had felt ultimate power before. This also began my tributes to other things that I will let you try to figure out. Expect more connections and tributes/shout outs. Now here's chapter 2.

Chapter 2:

Shepard had just reached the cargo bay when his shields reached full strength. It wasn't suprising that they took so long to activate since he had modded them to go beyond even their usual awesome state. Shepard wore very powerful colossus X armor that he had modded to withstand the power of his biotics. It was even more important when he got angry because his biotics become unstable and would overload regular shields and armor (he realized this when his first armor he got back in boot camp melted during a combat simulation), they've never figured out why it happens only that his body gets very hot and the armor holds all the heat in causing the heat to build up. Luckily his colossus X armor had a special filtration/coolant system that allowed the heat to escape and with the mods he had added since he pryed it from the cold dead body of the batarian forces leader on Torfan it was even better. His shotgun was a very powerful weapon that he got after his father's death. Before he got it, his father had used it thousands of times, and before that the spectre who gave it to his father had used it. Perhaps that's why he was willing to observe him for the spectres. Out of respect for his father saving his life.

He noticed Nihlus staring at him, "What?"

"I was just thinking that, for how much you look like your father, you don't act much like him."

This made Shepard very angry, "What do you know about him?!" He screamed at Nihlus. Everyone turned to look at them.

"I know that he was a young man barely more than a teen who picked up my shotgun and saved my ass from hundreds of slavers." At this point Nihlus had been shouting. Bringing his voice to barely more than a whisper."And I also know that he had a son who showed just as much strength as him." He then turned to get his weapons and stopped after taking one step, "And it's unfortunate that his son doesn't have as much restraint." He then walked away and started inspecting his weapons.

Shepard had had his biotics flaring through the entire conversation. He finally let them go and realized his suit was really hot and that he had forgotten to active the filtration system. He activated it and started inspecting his pistol.

"Are you all right commander?" Anderson asked behind him.

"He's right, my father had more restraint. Why didn't you put him forward while he was alive?"

"You know that we would have if he were alive." Anderson replied.

He then walked with Shepard to Jenkins and Kaiden.

"Your team's the muscle in this operation commander. Go in hard and head straight for the beacon."

_"Approaching_ _first_ _drop_ _point_." Joker said over the loud speaker.

Jenkins turned and saw Nihlus with his weapons, ready to go. "Nihlus you're coming with us?" He asked.

"I move faster on my own." He replied and ran and jumped out to the ground.

"Are you sure we can trust him?" Shepard asked Anderson.

"You know that better than any of us." He replied. "The missions yours now Shepard." He said as they reached the second drop point.

Shepard and his team went to the open doors and looked down.

"So, do we wait for him to land or—" Before Jenkins could finish his sentence Shepard jumped out and slammed to the ground with his biotics smashing a nice hole in the ground. "Well that's not fair, i don't have biotics."

Kaiden realizing he's not going to jump, walks around Jenkins and uses his biotics to lightly float down to the ground. Meanwhile, Jenkins now has to make a decision. Stay on the ship, or jump. "Come on. Nihlus jumped. They jumped. You can jump." He told himself. Taking a few steps back he started to run and... "Nope! You can't do it." He stopped just short of the edge and turned around. He shook a little but kept his balance. "Well that was close." Standing there staring at him, was Anderson. "What?" He said as he took a step forward and slipped on some of the coolant that ran through Shepards suit to help it cool down. He held his balance for a few more seconds, and then fell out of the ship. He screamed the whole way down and continued even after he hit the ground.

A woman stood at the top of a hill overlooking a lot of geth. She heard the screaming even from half a mile away. She made a decision to check it out once she finished with the machines. Turning back to them, she pulled her shotgun out and shot the one that had been about to hit her. She then charged the others thinking 1 down 49 to go.

Shepard was the one who got Jenkins to shut up. He smacked him in the head and told him to stand up. "Ow. I think I broke... everything."

"Shut up Jenkins. You just alerted the entire colony to our presence. That includes our enemies."

"Right... sir"

"You seem fine." Kaiden had run a scan during the conversation. "You didn't break any bones but you will have quite a few bruises. Kind of like when you asked to see my biotics."

"Great, those lasted for weeks, but at least they were worth it."

Having heard enough, Shepard moved forward and as he had suspected, they followed. He didn't go very far before they got sidetracked again. Kaiden started to talk to Jenkins about a creature that floated nearby. "It's just a gasbag." Jenkins said, "They're harmless." Already pushed pretty far the voice told him to kill the soldier but instead he decided he would shoot the gasbag. It exploded and Kaiden reacted "Damn!"

"Lets keep moving." Shepard said, "We need to keep our guard up, or else, the fucktard might become a team killing fucktard."

Before either one could respond, Shepard moved forward. When they got to an open area, Shepard put his fist up for them to stop. He observed the area for a few seconds and then sent Jenkins forward. Jenkins moved forward and was almost immediantly shot by enemy drones. They then turned to Shepard and Kaiden, immediately causing Shepard and Kaiden to spring into action. Kaiden let loose an overload and then a sabatoge and then fired at the one he used them on. Shepard immediately began firing his shotgun with his incendiary rounds. He took a few shots before he finally hit the thing. Annoyed, he put his shotgun back on the magnetic clip removed his helmet, which was obstructing his view, and using his biotics to help him, threw his helmet at the last drone. It hit dead on making it explode. The last thing it saw was Shepards eyes glowing redder than ever before and then returning to their usual brown. The last thing it heard was Shepard yelling a yell that made Jenkins's scream look like a whisper.

She heard the yell as she killed the last geth. She immediately knew that she should hurry. Williams was in that direction with the 212. She started to worry what might happen if they ran into this madman. She thought it would probably be worse than anything the geth would do to them. She hurried to her modified motorcycle, an antique in some people's eyes, but her baby in her eyes. Getting on her motorcycle she started it up and started towards where the yell had come from.

Kaiden walked up to Jenkins's body and checked his pulse. "They tore right through his shields. He never stood a chance."

Shepard was surprised to discover that he actually felt bad about Jenkins's death. But they still had a mission to complete. "We can't help him and we have a mission to finish. Come on, lets keep moving."

"Yes sir." Kaiden responded.

They continued on their way. They hadn't gone fifty feet before they ran into another patrol of drones.

She was almost there when one of the spikes the geth were using on the colonists went down. She would have ignored it if she hadn't seen movement immediately after that from the same spot. So instead, she stopped to look around. She didn't see any enemies but something had her on edge, she just couldn't figure out what. She stood there for about 10 seconds before she realized what had put her on edge. The spikes... they had been full when she went through here earlier. But now... now they were empty and down. She immediately pulled out her shotgun and got ready for anything. She sat at the ready for a few seconds and when nothing showed up, she got ready to leave. That was when a husk jumped at her from out of nowhere. It knocked her over and sent her sprawling. "Big mistake." She said, and went to grab her shotgun off of it's magnetic clip only to realize that she hadn't put it back. Looking around quickly, she found it... ten feet from her and on the other side of the husk. To make matters worse some more husks were coming out of there hiding spots to attack her. "Shit," was all she could think to say.

Shepard and Kaiden were just finishing off the last of the drones when she got knocked over by the husk. They then moved on to a clearing where they saw a woman running from some more drones. The woman was wearing phoenix armor and was lucky that she was because her shields were protecting her very well. Unlike Jenkins she was getting shot and surviving. She got hit in the shoulder and stumbled. She used it to her advantage though. She turned around as she fell and pulled her pistol out and shot the drones making them explode. When she had finished doing that she noticed the machines doing something with one of the colonists. She looked like she was going to try and help for a moment but then a spike shot up through the colonist and, realizing she couldn't help him now, she got up and ran to cover behind a rock.

The woman was still fighting husks when this happened but at least she had biotics or else they would have killed her immediately. She had been fighting with both her fists and biotics the whole time and hadn't even needed to pull out her pistol yet. She finally reached her shotgun and shot the husk that almost got her. From there it was quite easy for her because her shotgun made short work of them. Once they were all dead she observed the damage to her motorcycle. "Damn it." She said after seeing that they had beat it up good and she wasn't going to be riding it anytime soon. Annoyed but not forgetting why she came this way she hid her motorcycle to come back for it later and moved on.

During this time Shepard and Kaiden began to help the woman fight the machines that had impaled the colonist. Kaiden released an overload and Shepard shot them with his shotgun. The first one exploded in fire and scrap metal but the second one didn't want to die so Shepard put his shotgun away and charged it. He hit it with a full biotic punch that made it's head explode. He then turned to the woman they had found. "What's your name?" he asked her.

"Gunnery chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You in charge here sir?"

"No shit Sherlock. You figure that out all by yourself?"

She went to respond but before she could he put his hand up and shook his head. "I didn't actually want an answer. Now give me a status report."

"Oh man. We were out on patrol when the attack hit. We tryed to get to the beacon and they boxed us in. I've been fighting for my life ever since."

"Do you have any clue what we're fighting? Because i have no clue at all and i've fought some crazy things."

"I think they're geth."

"What?! The geth haven't been seen beyond veil for years, what are they doing here?" Kaiden said.

"If I had to guess, I'd have to say that they're here for the beacon." She said.

"Well no shit. Come on Kaiden, lets get moving."

"Wait sir, let me come with you."

"No."

"Come on commander. She might be able to help us."

"Since when is this a democracy. I'm pretty sure that i'm in charge."

"I'll follow your orders sir. Just let me help you." Ashley said.

"Fine. I guess this a democracy now." Shepard said before moving on.

"Don't let it get to you. He's always like that. He's had a crappy life." Kaiden told Ashley.

"He's always like that?" Ashley asked.

"Yeah. He grows on you though." Kaiden replied, "Come on."

Shepard was a little ahead of them when they ran into more geth. They began fighting and killed all but one geth when that geth was tackled to the ground by a soldier in completely black armor with two knifes which they used to decapitated the geth unit. The soldier stood up and picked up the geth's head. "Geth 0, me 61." The soldier said.

"Shit." was all Shepard was able to say before the soldier looked at him and even through the N7 breather helmet you could see the look in her eyes. She walked towards him and removed her helmet as she went to reveal a beautiful woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a scar that went over her right eye all the way down through her lips and ended at her chin. It was the scar she had recieved on their first mission together.

"Hey," Shepard said, "How have you been Texas?"

"Wait, your the famous Texas?" Kaiden asked.

It didn't matter. It was as if he wasn't there. "You son of a bitch! It's been five years and all you can say is hey?!" She responded. She then took the last three steps required to close the distance and punched him as hard as she could without using her biotics. "No goodbye! No I'm going to this place and no contact! We may have broken up but that's no reason to become an asshole!"

"Wait you two used to date?" Ashley asked, but again it was like they were invisible.

"That's not my falt! I've been busy the last 5 years!" Shepard's eyes were still brown but there was a red glow around them.

"Don't give me those eyes with that red glow!" She snapped.

Suddenly his eyes stopped glowing and he had a look of surprise on his face. "They were glowing?"

"Look Tarius, I know why your eyes do that. So, I also know that if you didn't notice that then there's something wrong." She said.

"Look, we need to find the beacon. We'll talk later." Shepard said.

"I'll help you." Texas said.

"Why would you help us?" Shepard asked.

"Because i want to, and because your beacon's not here like it should be." Texas replied.

Shepard realized that she was right. "Fine. Then lets get going."

Before they continued on their way, Texas threw her helmet to the side and clipped the head of the geth to her back next to her assault rifle, on the magnetic clip that was normally used for a sniper which she didn't use. She then turned to see that the others were staring at her. "What? Am I not allowed to keep a trophy?"

Kaiden opened his mouth but she interupted him, "Don't answer that."

"It'd probably be bad for your health if you did lieutenant." Shepard said.

"I think he still remembers the time i kicked his ass." Texas said.

Suddenly, Kaiden looked even more worried than before. This made Shepard burst out laughing along with Ashley and Texas. Kaiden's face changed to one of confusion, he was the only one who didn't know Texas and therefore, didn't know what was so funny. "What?" He said, "What's so funny?"

"The fact that you think I'd kick your ass. I just have to pull rank with you." She barely got the sentence through before she burst out laughing some more.

"Texas here is a lieutenant commander." Shepard said.

"Oh!" Kaiden said.

"You always out of the loop LT?" Ashley asked him.

"Not always." Kaiden replied.

"But when you are, it's usually something important isn't it." Ashley replied.

"Apparently."

"If you're done flirting may we move on?"

"We weren't flirting." They said at the same time. Both of their faces turning red.

"Uh huh." Shepard said, "Lets keep moving."

They started moving up a hill to the camp for the scientists that were studying the beacon. "_Shepard_," Nihlus spoke up over the comm, "_I see a space port ahead. I'm going to check it out. Meet you there._"

Shepard ignored the comm and continued walking to the top of the hill and stopped because Texas had stopped. "What is it?" He asked her. She didn't answer. He turned and looked where she was staring. What he saw was more of the spikes from earlier only, the people on them... weren't people anymore.

"What the hell did they do to the colonists?" Shepard asked.

"I don't know but a bunch of those jumped me earlier." Texas said.

"How did they—" Kaiden never finished what he was saying, because at that moment one of the spikes descended and the thing on it got off it and began heading toward them. Texas immediately wipped out her shotgun and shot it in the face. "Those things attacked me earlier."

"Well get ready because there's still two more." Kaiden said.

"Not for long." Shepard said before walking up to the descending spikes and putting his fist through one of their heads with his biotics and throwing the other one straight up with his biotics. "There, all taken care of."

"Not that subtle, but I like it." Texas said.

"Look the camps destroyed." Kaiden was staring at the destroyed camp.

"Not all of it. Look at that building." Ashley was pointing at one of the buildings nearby, "The lock on the door's engaged."

"I got this." Texas said. She then walked up to the door, looked it up and down and then backed up.

"Do you not—" before Kaiden could finish asking his question, she charged the door with a full biotic punch and sent it flying in the building. Almost immediately someone inside yelled "Please don't kill us!"

The group entered the building to find two scientists. A woman, probably in her thirties, and a man, probably in his forties, who didn't seem quite all there. Shepard was immediately annoyed, figuring that these two wouldn't be able to help him. "Close the door, before they come back." Yep, he was off his nutter.

"That might be a problem." Shepard said.

"Thank god! The alliance is here!" The woman said, "Ignore my assistant."

Shepard decided to make this quick. "What happened to the beacon?" He said.

"Wait a moment." Ashley interrupted. "You're Dr. Warren, the scientist in charge of the excavation."

"Yes I am, and the beacon was moved to the spaceport the earlier today."

"Agents of the destroyers, bringers of darkness, heralds of our extinction!" The assistant said.

"Shut up Manuel." Dr. Warren said.

Shepard was on his last nerve. "What's wrong with your assistant?" He asked.

"Manuel is a genius, but he's always been a bit... unstable. Madness and genius are two sides of the same coin."

"Is it madness to see the future? To see the destruction rushing towards us? To see there's no hope? No! _I _am not mad! I'm the only sane one left!" Dr. Warren had been shaking her head by the end and she now turned back to Shepard and the others.

"I gave him an extra dose of his meds after the attack."

Shepard immediately thought he had a better idea. "Say good night Manuel."

"You cannot silence the truth. My voice must be heard!" Shepard's biotics launched Manuel all the way to the back wall knocking him out cold. Manuel then fell onto the top bunk of the bunkbed at the back of the room.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Dr. Warren asked.

"That might have been a little extreme commander." Kaiden said.

"It was only a matter of time before he did something crazy and dangerous." Shepard replied. "Besides, he's fine." At that moment, the top bunk collapsed onto the bottom bunk with Manuel still on it, causing Manuel to fall on the floor. "At least I think he's all right."

"Perhaps we should get moving." Texas said.

"Perhaps you're right." Shepard responded.

"Yes, maybe it's for the best. At least the meds should kick in before he wakes up." Dr. Warren said.

After she said this they moved on. As they started to come around a corner they caught their first glimpse of the top of the spaceport. Hanging above it was the ship from the video. Once they saw the ship they all stopped dead in their tracks.

Nihlus hadn't stopped when he saw the ship. So, he got to the spaceport way ahead of them. The first thing he noticed when he came out of cover was the turian standing there and looking around. "Saren?"

The other turian turned around, "Nihlus."

"What are you doing here Saren? This isn't your mission." Nihlus didn't know that Saren wasn't supposed to be able to participate in this mission.

Saren took advantage of that fact, "The council thought you could use some help."

"I didn't expect to find the geth here. The situation's bad."

"Don't worry." Saren said as he pointed his pistol at the back of Nihlus's head. "I have it under control." He then pulled the trigger.

They heard the shot and that was what pulled them out of their stupor. "We should get moving." Shepard said.

They then moved forward only to be attacked immediately by more geth and husks. After killing them they put their weapons away, realizing that they were safe for the moment. As they walked by a building Shepard noticed people staring at them from inside. The voice wanted to kill them for being cowards, but he decided not to and instead flipped them off. "Was that really necessary commander?" Kaiden asked.

"If that was the compromise, then yes." Texas said.

"Compromise?" Kaiden asked.

"It's his choice whether he tells you or not." Texas responded.

Before Kaiden could respond, Shepard started running. Kaiden and the others ran to catch up and what they found surprised them. "Commander, it's Nihlus." Kaiden said.

Immediately, Shepard wipped around and said "I noticed asshole! It's Nihlus and he's dead! The man my father fought so hard to protect is dead! And it's because I couldn't protect him!" Shepard's biotics began to flare with his anger. "He's dead and it's all because I couldn't save him! Me! Apparently, I'm not as good as you dad! No! No! No! I'll never be as great as you! Lt colonel Shepard!" Shepard was now ranting at the sky and only Texas noticed he had stopped saying dad. "Was this what you wanted! A failure! Huh! Was this what you wanted Shepard!" Shepard's eyes were glowing bright red and absolutely no brown remained. This was when Texas realized he wasn't going to stop without help. Shepard continued ranting at the sky and didn't notice her walk up to him.

"Shepard stop." She said it firmly but, he didn't stop. He continued to rant and as he did things began to float and others were getting crushed. She still tryed to stop him anyway. "Shepard!" This time she showed anger towards him. The objects that had been lifted began to spin cutting Shepard and Texas off from Ashley and Kaiden. "Listen to me!" She screamed. The spinning objects were beginning to pull her back from him. Yet, he still wouldn't stop. She had finally had enough. "Tarius! Look at me you son of a bitch!" This caused him to look and she saw that his eyes were'nt just glowing red. They were engulfed in red. There were no eyes in those sockets, no Shepard, no Tarius. There was only evil. It was then that she realized she was floating. It was then that the thing in front of her spoke.

"Who are you to face my wrath?" It said in a deep voice.

She ignored it. "Tarius, I know your in there. Now come out!" The eyes flickered but still the being held control. "This is the same thing you've fought for years Tarius! You can beat it!" This time his eyes flickered longer and he regained a little control.

"I... can't. He's... to... strong."

"You're wrong." She responded.

He then started fighting harder than ever. "You're just a voice." Tarius said.

"You know that's not true." The voice responded.

"You may be right. But i'm more powerful." Tarius responded. The entire time, his biotics had turned a bright red color.

"You're wrong but the time may come when you are. Until that time though, your body is mine."

"No... it's... not!" Tarius screamed and released everything with a burst of his biotics launching it everywhere. Tarius then fell to the ground from floating and while he was starting to recover, the voice spoke up.

"You have weakness. And as long as you have weakness, I will be stronger than you." It then faded to the back of his mind.

"What the hell was that?! Commander are you all right?" Kaiden said.

"Fine." Shepard replied. "Better than i've been in years." The voice, for the first time in five years, was silent.

"I thought you didn't like Nihlus." Kaiden said.

"I didn't. But i respected him. And i didn't want to be the cause of his death. Not after my father caused his survival." Shepard stared at the turian's dead body.

Ashley was staring at some crates nearby. She suddenly saw movement and fired her assault rifle at it. "Hey! Stop! Stop! Stop! I'm human!" Ashley immediately stopped firing and watched as a man started out from behind the crates.

"Is that how they say hello where you come from?" He said.

"What are you doing here?" Shepard asked.

"I could ask you the same thing." The man responded.

"But you're not gonna." Ashley replied still not lowering her rifle.

"Easy chief." Shepard said. "We're all human here."

Ashley gave him a look that showed how much she thought he had changed but she relaxed and put her rifle away.

"Now, tell us what happened here." Shepard told the man.

"Well that ship came down and shortly after the attack started it started screaming bloody murder." The man told them.

"Why weren't you killed?" Ashley asked.

"I survived because i hid behind the crates." He replied.

"How come no one else hid behind the crates?" Kaiden asked.

"They didn't have time to hide behind them." The man paused as if hesitating. "I was already behind the crates when the attack began."

"What were you doing behind the crates?" Shepard asked.

"Sometimes I need forty winks to make it through my shift." He said, obviously afraid he was going to be in trouble.

"You survived because you were lazy!" Ashley yelled at him.

"Calm down soldier." Shepard told her, "What's your problem?"

"I just don't like lazy sons of bitches like him." She replied.

"Well calm down. If he hadn't hidden he'd be dead." Shepard then turned back to the man. "Did you see what happened to our friend?"

"The turian?" He asked. "The other turian shot him."

"Other turian."

"Yeah. Saren! Your friend said his name was Saren. I think he knew him. Your friend let his guard down. Then Saren killed him. Shot him right in the back of the head."

"One last thing. What happened to the beacon?"

"That. That was moved to the other spaceport. You can get there using the tram."

"That's all we need. Why don't you go hide for a little longer?"

"Yeah that sounds like a good idea. I'll hide until it's safe."

He then went off to hide somewhere. Shepard then turned to face the others. "We should keep moving."

They then started toward the tram until they ran into more geth. The fighting was intense but over quickly. The group moved on until they reached the tram where they discovered heavy resistance.

Saren hadn't wanted to do it. But he had had no choice. He couldn't have Nihlus telling the council that he wasn't really following a lead in the Armstrong cluster. Technically he was going to, since he had heard of geth there that didn't worship Sovereign and wanted to know what they were doing there. He was getting annoyed of the number of unknowns thrown at him. Especially, Shepard. This human had come from out of nowhere. Suddenly he might become a spectre and cause oh so many problems. Yet if he could somehow stop that from happening... of course he had just inherited the files for the mission, and control on Shepard's future. "This... could get interesting." Saren said before shooting the dock worker in front of him in the face.

Shepard and the others were just reaching the front of the tram when Saren shot the dock worker. "OK. So when we reach the other end of the tram, there's bound to be a bunch of geth there so be ready."

"Yes, sir." Kaiden and ashley said at the same time.

"I'll cover your rear." Texas said.

"No. We might need your help." Shepard said.

"You'll be fine. Besides, others might show up behind you. We can't have them sneaking up on you."

"Texas."

"I'll be fine. Now go! Here come some geth."

Shepard finally hit the button and got the tram moving. As the tram pulled away, Texas engaged the geth.

Saren saw all of this from a security terminal. "Dammit!" He said, what should I do, he kept thinking. After he was done using it the beacon was being set to blow up but he felt that, that wouldn't stop Shepard. He finally decided to just blow the whole colony. "Set the charges. Leave no evidence we were here." The charges were a last resort for a worst case scenario. So, the geth knew they were important. Saren then approached the beacon. It activated, and lifted him into the air.

Just after Saren had left, Shepard and the others arrived. As the tram pulled to a stop, they saw a geth on the platform next to the tram setting a bomb. Shepard stepped off the tram and used his biotics to throw the geth over the railing of the platform with it's large drop. He then approached the bomb and crouched down to look at it. "I can deal with this and any other bombs around, but I'll need time." He said.

Both Ashley and Kaiden were looking at him with surprise at the change in him. He never noticed because he was already working on the bomb. "Just cover me."

He then finished dealing with the bomb and started up the ramp. Once they reached the top of the ramp, they were immediately shot at by the geth who had noticed them. They moved across the bridge shooting as they went. Shepard reached the next bomb and as Ashley and Kaiden covered him, he deactivated it and same with the next one. It was with the final one that problems arose. First the geth fought harder for the final one than for the others and then when they finally got to it another problem arose. "Uh oh." Shepard said.

"Uh oh. What's uh oh?" Kaiden said.

"I don't have enough time to deal with this one." Shepard said.

"How much time is left?" Ashley asked.

"30 seconds." Shepard replied, "Kaiden. Can you do it in that amount of time?"

"Not unless you have a better idea than run away." Kaiden replied.

"Great. I'm gonna try something but i don't know if it will work." Shepard said, "I suggest you stand back."

They did more than stand back, they got behind cover and plugged their ears. "Thanks for the vote of confidence." Shepard said before turning back to the bomb. He disconnected the trigger and started to look for the red wire. He was having trouble finding it when he realized it had 10 seconds left. "Oh, fuck it!" He said and then grabbed hold of all the wires and yanked. They didn't budge. He yanked again. Nothing. 5 seconds. One last chance. He yanked. Nothing. 2 seconds. He did the first thing he could think of and threw a biotic field over it. 1 second. He tensed, ready to hold the explosion in and... nothing. He opened his eyes to see that the clock had stopped at 1 second. He was immediately confused. He dropped the field and approached the bomb. He saw what had done it. The red wire was hanging out of the bomb along with a few others. He let out the breath he had been holding and told Ashley and Kaiden that it was safe. They came out and looked at his handy work.

"Are you sure it's safe?" Kaiden said.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." Shepard said.

"Star wars. Really?" Ashley said.

"Still a classic." Shepard said, "Now come on." They started toward a ramp that lead down to the beacon.

Saren was aboard Sovereign once again, believing Eden Prime to be destroyed and Shepard dealt with. Believing both of these to be true he was feeling very confident and decided to speak to the geth troops. More out of boredom than a need for a morale boost. He went before the geth onboard and activated the comm to the other ships. "I know we have lost many on this mission. We must remember though that they gave their... well their platforms for us to have a major victory and we got it. For, Eden Prime was a major victory, it has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."

"And one step closer to the return of the reapers." an asari said, emerging from the shadows behind Saren.

"Ah, yes. Your gods will return, and they will make you stronger, and better than ever." Saren said, though he knew it wasn't true. Saren knew the geth were little more than tools and he knew what Sovereign really thought of the geth. "Now i must plan our next move. Until then prepare." He then deactived the comm and motioned for two geth to follow him.

During this time Shepard and his team had moved down the ramp. Before they had descended, Shepard had gotten a brilliant idea. So when they reached the bottom of the platform, the few geth standing there were very surprised to see Shepard holding the bomb with his biotics walking toward them. Since there were so few geth, they weren't too bright, and therefore, couldn't tell that the bomb was deactivated. They immediately started to back up, whereas the husks started running at them. Kaiden and Ashley had no problem dispatching of them. Finally, the geth reached the railing and Shepard launched the bomb at them knocking them off the edge.

"You always did prefer to get creative." Texas said coming up behind them, "There weren't many to hold off but i couldn't keep them from taking your turian friend's body."

"That's to bad. I had hoped to give him a proper burial. Like my father would have wanted him to have." Shepard responded.

"Well lets check on the beacon." Texas said.

"Yes that seems like a good idea." Shepard said.

They approached the beacon and found it was activated. Texas took shepard to the side to speak with him.

"I know that you haven't been yourself since Torfan. So what happened to bring you back out?" Texas asked him.

"I can't be sure, but i think it has something to do with the promise I made to my father just before he died." Shepard said.

While they were talking Kaiden and Ashley were talking. "Wow, an actual working piece of Prothean technology. Amazing!" Kaiden said.

"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up." Ashley responded.

Kaiden walked away radioing for Joker since Shepard was busy. Ashley continued to observe the beacon getting a little closer to it. Suddenly, it grabbed her and lifted her into the air.

Texas saw this from the other side of Shepard and ran to help her only to discover that she wasn't strong enough to throw her. Shepard saw this and started toward them knowing that he wouldn't be strong enough to move them both... not without help. So he did the last thing he ever thought he would do. He asked the voice for help.

_"Why am i not suprised?" _It responded. But it leant him the strength he needed.

He approached them and grabbing both of them, tossed them away from the beacon. But he was immediately picked up by the beacon. Almost immediately, images began to flash through his brain. Images of death and destruction. And to make matters worse, he could hear something too. Not part of the vision, but something far worse. He could hear the voice and it was doing something it had never done before. The voice was screaming in pain. The two combined was excrutiating and he was glad they didn't last too long. After a few seconds the vision was over and then the beacon blew up. Shepard's last thought was, I'm dying! I'm dying. I'm dyi—

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading this chapter of Tarius's story. I hope the next chapter will come quicker but i won't make any promises. In this chapter I brought in a character from the list who was connected to his past. I also added a few things i thought would be interesting or funny. In this chapter you got to learn a few facts and you learned just how bad this voice has affected Tarius and how much it has changed him. You also learned about Tarius's father. I hope to bring more of his past to light later. But for now, I hope you are enjoying the story so far and that it will successfully indoctri— I mean, that you will fall in love with this story and follow it. Please leave comments and constructive criticism.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3

She saw it all and felt it all. Ashley saw that Shepard's eyes had been glowing blue when he threw her and Texas. She had seen Texas's surprise when he lifted them with ease and threw them. That was when the feeling started. Shepherd was lifted in the air by the beacon, and immediately she went to help him only to be stopped by kaiden when he said "Don't touch him!" That stopped her dead in her tracks but apparently Texas didn't hear him or decided to ignore him because she kept going until Ashley wrapped her arms around her and held her back.

That was when they heard the screaming. It started as an itch in their minds and slowly became a blood curdling scream. They all clamped their hands over their ears, but it didn't help. For the first time ever, the voice had reached beyond Tarius's mind. After a few seconds it stopped and the beacon exploded. These events happened within 20 seconds.

Immediately Texas ran to Tarius's body, "He's still breathing!" She said.

Just then, the Normandy showed up. The ship lowered as Kaiden and Texas carried Shepard onboard. Anderson was there and immediately began to ask questions. "What happened?"

"Shepard got knocked out." Kaiden replied.

"And the beacon?"

"That's what knocked him out." He replied, "It exploded and knocked him out."

"Well, lets get him to the med bay." He then looked at Ashley. "Who are you? And where's Jenkins?"

"I'm gunnery chief Ashley Williams of the 212. As for Jenkins..." She turned to Kaiden.

"He got killed by a drone, shortly after we landed."

"I see. Well no more time for jibber jabber." He said, "Lets get the commander onboard."

"Aren't you going to ask me who I am?" Texas said in an obviously annoyed voice (with concern for Tarius showing clearly on her face).

"I don't need to Texas." He responded. They then all boarded the ship, and brought Shepard to the infirmary.

Shepard awoke in a clearing. Only, he wasn't on the ground. He was floating, and because of that, he immediately had one thought. So he voiced it. "Am I dead?"

"Not yet brother."

He looked to the left and saw a man walking toward him. Before he could say anything, he fell to the ground. It was when he hit the ground that he spoke for the second time. "So I am alive."

"Do you not understand the words, not yet?"

"I understand them. I just only listen when it's someone I know."

"But you do know me." He replied, a huge smile on his face.

That was when Tarius really looked at the man in front of him. After a moment he realized why he looked familiar. The man before him looked very much like his brother but with small differences.

"Are you mocking my brother?"

"I told you, I am your brother."

"I think I would know my own brother."

"Oh, really."

Suddenly, the man before him blurred along with the area around him. As he unblurred, Tarius saw him yelling at the sky right before he heard him.

"—losing connection! Could you please fi—" he then realized that Tarius was staring at him. "Thank you!"

"Your welcome." Tarius said a little unsure.

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Great, a crazy guy is my brother."

"I'm not crazy. I'm talking to the guy who set up this connection."

"Which is?"

"He didn't give me a name. He just told me to call him Stranger and that he'd help me contact you."

"Really."

"I'm not crazy. Or at least not anymore crazy than you with your voice. And definately nowhere near as crazy as the guy who was with this... Stranger."

"Wait, how do you know about the voice?" He asked though he was already beginning to remember everything.

"Oh come on. You should be remembering things. Don't lie to me about it."

"You're right. So why does it matter?"

"You still haven't remembered everything?! This is ridiculous. Try to remember faster."

"Maybe if you shut up Xavlios. I can remem—"

"See, I told you you could remember."

"Shut up! You're not helping!"

"Whatever. But you remember?"

"Yes. Everything."

"Well don't get used to it, you'll lose it when you wake up."

"What?!"

"Right now. We're asleep. Which gives us better access to our true forms."

"Eventually, you do realize that we'll be able to reach this info when we're awake right?"

"I won't."

Tarius went to ask him what he meant, but when he looked up he saw a forlorn look on Xavlios's face and knew what he meant. "You're going to die?"

"Yes." Xavlios replied, "And so will you if you don't change your ways."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to control the voice. Not the other way around."

"Scarlai." Tarius said," I've controlled him before."

"He's stronger here!" Xavlios replied. "And he will lead you too your death if you're not careful!"

Tarius couldn't reply. For the first time since they got there, Scarlai spoke up. The only problem was, it wasn't in his head like always.

"You know, you lie all the time Xavlios. Why should he trust you?" Scarlai spoke up, walking out from behind a tree.

"Trust me?" Xavlios asked, "And you're so trustable?"

"Easier to trust than you." He replied.

"It doesn't matter! I came to speak to Tarius! Not some sorry excuse for a Sith!"

"Boy! You know my power, so I suggest you—"

Suddenly, a man appeared behind him and grabbed him. "Who the he—"

"I suggest you let these two talk or II'll ask my employer if I can tear you in half." The man said in a thick Scottish accent, and then paused and stared into space. "What do you mean I can't tear him in half?" More staring. Suddenly he began laughing. "Whatever, Mr. President. Can I at least tear off a limb?" Even more staring. "You'll think about it. Good answer."

"You're the guy who was with—"

"Yes. Now are you going to continue your conversation or not?"

"I can see why you called him crazy."

"Crazy? Awww, that hurt my feelings." The man said. "I'm insane. There's a difference."

"Whatever. Look, if you make the same mistakes as me, then you'll have the same fate. Mine is sealed. Yours isn't."

"Hey, the boss says to hurry it up. Your connection is about to be disconnected."

Suddenly, everything except Xavlios and the man seemed to start fading. Scarlai dissipated and the man relaxed.

"Thanks for your help with Scarlai. Mr..."

"Call me Red." He said in his thick Scottish accent with that hint of insanity. "At least, everyone else does. Though I don't think we'll meet again."

"That's too bad." Tarius said before turning back to Xavlios.

"One more thing." Xavlios said. "Watch for—"

Suddenly, Tarius couldn't hear him. "What?" He replied. But Xavlios was gone.

"Him unfortunately. You will see again."

Turning around, Tarius finally got to see The Stranger. "So you're The Stranger?"

"True and false." He replied. "I am known by other names as well."

"Whatever. You're here because?"

"I'm here because I wanted to let you know that I will be watching you very closely. Your brother is right. His fate is decided. Yours is not. In fact, it could go either way. You could either control Scarlai and keep the balance or..."

"Or what?"

"Or he could control you and unbalance everything. If he takes control of you, I'm not sure that even I could stop him."

"That's saying something." Red said.

"Red! I had forgotten you were here. Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Oh, right!" Red said, then under his breath. "I'm coming buddy." He then disappeared.

"So, why do you keep him around?" Tarius asked but when he turned back The Stranger was gone.

The first thing he noticed, was that he was alone. The second thing... that that wasn't true. He could feel it. Something evil. At first he thought it was Scarlai, but then he realized it was different. Then he realized there were two of them. Different from each other, but both equally as evil. Then he saw them. Two dark figures, made from black smoke approaching him. Racing toward him. He then realized what they were really racing toward... control. He started to retreat, and tripped. They were three steps from him. Two. One. When they reached him, they began to reach down. He tensed ready to fight, when...

Shepard jumped up, grabbed Ashley and Texas with his biotics and slammed them to the wall before he realized what he was doing. Once he did, he immediately dropped them and laid back down. "Sorry." He said.

"What the hell was that?!" Ashley yelled.

"Nightmare?" Texas asked.

"Yeah." He replied.

"Does that happen every time he has a nightmare?" Ashley asked.

"Not every time." Texas said. "Just for the bad ones."

"Which would explain a bit." Dr. Chakwas said entering the room. "How do you feel commander?" She asked as he sat up.

"Like the night after shore leave." He replied, "How long was I out?"

"Only a few hours." She answered. "But I observed some rapid eye movement which usually indicates signs of intense dreaming."

Tarius could only remember small parts of his dream. Like the end and Red and The Stranger. "I saw... I don't know what I saw. Death, destruction. Nothings clear." In the end, he had told them what the beacon had shown him.

"Are you OK Tarius?" Texas asked.

"I'm fine. I think."

"Physically your fine. But mentally... well." Chakwas said.

"I'm fine!" Tarius said.

"That's good." Anderson said, finally stepping foreword. "Commander, I'd like to speak to you. In private."

Texas, Ashley, and Chakwas took the hint and left the room. Anderson then turned back to Shepard. "Sounds like that beacon hit you pretty hard. How are you feeling?"

"Captain Obvious. Oh, may I call you Captain Obvious?" Tarius asked jokingly. Anderson looked at him with a straight face. "I'll take that as a no. Well, I'm feeling fine. Except for the dead soldier under my command. The woman who's not part of the crew that's onboard and what am I forgetting. Oh yeah! The geth that just attacked Eden Prime!"

"The geth haven't been seen outside the Perseus veil in centuries. How were we supposed to know they'd show up? And Williams is my call not yours!"

"I... I'm sorry sir. I didn't mean any offense."

This was Anderson's first time seeing the real Tarius and he was very surprised at the change in him since the last time they talked. "None taken commander." Anderson replied. "Texas is getting off at the citadel. Something about someone who will want to see her geth head." Anderson shrugged.

"I think I know who she was talking about."

"In any case, I won't lie to you Shepard. Things look bad. Nihlus is dead. The beacon is destroyed. The council will want answers."

_"Ah yes. The council. Well they don't order us around now do they."_ The voice spoke up. Tarius wasn't surprised by the voice. What he was surprised by, was the fact that he felt like the voice had a name and that he felt like he should know it.

"No offense, but I really don't care what the council thinks."

"Well I do. Especially since that puts Udina on my back."

"There's another person whose opinion I don't care about."

"Is there anyone whose opinion you do care about?" Anderson said, obviously annoyed.

Before he could stop himself, Tarius responded. "Yeah, yours and Texas's. That's about it right now."

Anderson stiffened, obviously surprised by the answer. The voice laughed. Tarius had been serious though. Anderson not knowing what to say, decided to give him an order. "We should be getting close to the citadel. Get up to the bridge and tell Joker to take us in." He then left the room and headed for his quarters.

This gave Tarius some time to think about the only other person whose opinion he had cared about. His father. As he was thinking of his father, he started heading to the bridge. As he was heading to the bridge he ran into Ashley. She looked angry so he walked up to her.

"Something on your mind?"

"You questioned my ever move on the mission. Why?!"

"You're asking me why? You got a problem with being questioned by superior officers?"

"No... sir."

"Just remember. When I'm questioning you, it means I think you can do better."

"Yes, sir."

As he walked away, he realized that that was what his father used to tell him. He continued up the stairs, when he reached the top, he realized he was being followed. Turning around, he saw Ashley standing there. He then turned back around and kept going.

Saren had just finished giving the two geth he had taken, their orders when Matriarch Benezia approached behind him. "Now go get ready for your missions." He told them and they went off not knowing one of them would die in the Armstrong cluster and the other on route to Virmire.

"It appears the humans saved the colony." She stated.

"And the beacon?" He replied.

"One of the humans may have used it." She answered.

Immediately he began to freakout. He had a headache from the beacon, the info was still confusing, and a human may have used the beacon to top it all off. He threw things around and marched up to Benezia and grabbed her head in the same way a lover might... or someone about to snap her neck.

"Deal with this human. There's no room for mistakes. Not at this point." He then turned back and sat down in the chair he had been sitting in when she entered. As she was leaving the room he began to think that perhaps things would have been better if he had stayed a little longer on Eden Prime. Then he thought that perhaps it would have been better if he hadn't found Sovereign at all. Before this thought could grow, Sovereign ripped it from his mind and began to fill his mind with thoughts of how helping the reapers would be helping the organics.

Shepard reached the bridge, with Ashley still behind him, just as they reached the citadel. Immediately, Ashley ran to the window seeing a giant ship flying overhead. "Look at the size of that ship!" she said.

"The Destiny Ascension. Flagship of the Citadel fleet." Kaiden said.

"Yeah, well... size isn't everything." Joker said.

Teasingly, Ashley replied. "Why so touchy Joker?"

Obviously surprised at Ashley for making a joke, Joker answered. "I'm just saying, you need firepower too."

Ashley immediately responded. "Look at that thing. It's main guns could rip through any ship in the Alliance fleet!"

"Good thing it's on our side then." Kaiden said.

Shepard went to leave the cockpit, only to stop when he heard a familiar voice arguing with Joker over the comm. "I'll let you know if you can land, when YOU tell me if he's onboard."

"I already told you, I don't know anyone by that name." Joker replied.

Shepard headed right back into the cockpit until he was right behind Joker. "What's wrong flight lieutenant?"

"This guy won't let us land unless I can tell him if someone's onboard."

"Who?" Shepard asked.

"Some guy named..." After a second he remembered the name. "Oh, yeah. Tarius."

Shepard, seeing the possibility for a joke, responded. "Ask for a last name."

"Yes, sir." Joker responded with a slight hint of sarcasm. "Can you give me a last name?"

"The name's Washington. Captain... Washington."

"Not your last name idiot." Shepard said over the comm.

"Shepard?! So you are onboard." Washington replied.

Joker, realizing that Shepard knows the guy on the comm, turned around. "Commander, what's your first name?"

"You mean you don't know flight lieutenant?" Kaiden answered.

"I've only been onboard a couple of hours and I know." Ashley said.

"Know what?" Joker asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"That my first name is Tarius." Shepard answered. A huge smile on his face.

"Of course it is." Joker said.

"Okay. You're cleared to dock." Washington said over the comm. "I'll meet you at the dock."

"Great. Now we'll have two crazy people near the ship." Joker said.

"I heard that." Tarius said.

"I was talking about Texas." Joker said.

"Well, don't let her know you said that."

"Yes, sir." Joker replied. "No need to worry about that. I kinda want the Normandy to stay in one piece."

"Whatever you say Joker." Shepard said.

Shepard then headed to get his armor. Ashley and Kaiden followed him a little confused when he went to his locker. "Why are you grabbing your armor sir?" Kaiden asked.

"After the life I've lived, there are many people who would love to kill me." He said, and after a moment, added. "And anyone who travels with me."

In response to what Shepard had said, Kaiden and Ashley headed toward their lockers. Shepard was a little annoyed that he would have to wait a little longer for them, but it gave him time to think of the last time he had seen Washington. He had punched him and would have done worse if not for his respect for the friend of his mother and father. The man who had befriended him when he was just a boy. The man who had been there when his father died. No matter how hard he tried, he always ended up thinking about that when he thought of Washington. It didn't matter to Tarius that he had been there. It did matter to him that he hadn't saved his father. Shepard couldn't understand why he hadn't been able to save his father. The Voice had it's own thought of what happened though. As if summoned by the thought of it, the Voice said. _"Perhaps he didn't try." _

"No." Tarius said out loud. "He tried. I know it."

_"Do you really?"_ The Voice replied.

Tarius went to respond, only to realize that he didn't. "Son of a bitch." He said under his breath.

"Well that's no way to talk to your commanding officer." Anderson said, coming out of his quarters. "Unless you were talking about Texas's son."

Shepard burst out laughing. "I hear that." He said.

"What are we talking about?" Texas asked.

"Your son." Shepard said.

Texas immediately got it. "Really? Is this really the time to be talking about a son of a bitch?"

Her face and voice were serious, but her eyes wouldn't stop smiling. They stood there for another 10 seconds and then burst out laughing. Once they were done laughing, Anderson turned to Texas and asked her, "Are you sure you won't come answer any questions the ambassador and the council might have?"

"Unless you want a massacre of politicians, that would be a very bad idea." Texas replied.

"I'm sure that wouldn't happen." Anderson said.

"Let me put it this way. Tarius has more control around politicians." Texas said.

"Which is almost none." Tarius contributed.

"Then perhaps it's best you don't come." Anderson said.

"Understatement." Tarius said.

For the comment, Texas punched him in the arm. It was playful, but it still hurt. "Ow." Tarius said.

"You big baby." Texas replied.

"Who's a big baby?" Kaiden said as he and Ashley walked up.

"Shepard." Texas replied.

"You gonna take that commander?" Ashley asked.

"From her? Yes." He answered.

"We should get moving." Anderson said. "Unless you want Udina to be angry."

"Let him be angry. Me and Texas have an old friend to catch up with." Shepard answered.

"Fine. But make it fast." Anderson said heading to his room for some final preparations for the meeting.

"Well, we best get moving." Texas then headed to the airlock.

As they stood in the airlock, an awkward silence arose. Before they could start a conversation, the door finally opened. As they walked out they saw a man who appeared to be in his thirties arguing with another man who seemed to be about in his upper fifties/lower sixties. They both wore alliance uniforms but the older man was higher ranking. "What do you mean you just left your post?!" He asked the younger man.

"Don't worry. My mother was with me. She promised to watch my post." The younger man replied. "You know she was the best at this job after everything she had been through caused her to get stuck with it. She always performs at her best."

"Your mother's not the same as she used to be. That's what worries me." The older man replied.

"You know, as the man who married her, you'd think you would have more faith in her abilities." The younger man replied.

"You're right son. I'm still gonna check on her, but I should have more faith in her." The father replied. He then walked away to the elevator and rode it down. The son then sighed putting his hand to his head and shook it.

"Parents... right." Tarius said.

The son's head shot up. He turned to Tarius and a smile immediately lit up his face. Tarius responded with a similar smile. They ran to each other and, though it was the last thing anyone expected, gave each other a big hug. "Tarius!" The son said. "Long time no see buddy!"

"Same to you Washington." Texas said, walking up.

"Texas... I see you haven't changed." He replied.

"Yeah. Hey! Look what I've got." She said, pulling out her geth head. "Took out quite a few of these before I took this."

Immediately, Washington took on a look of complete anger. Ashley and Kaiden immediately were confused. Tarius seeing the looks on their faces decided to explain. "Washington had a bad experience with an AI when he was younger."

"By bad experience he means one made my mom loose her arm and leg. To this day she has robotic ones." Washington said.

"And to this day he hates any sort of AI or VI." Texas said.

"I even hate Avina." Washington said. "But that's for whole 'nother reason."

"Who's Avina?" Ashley asked.

"She's the Citadel's AI." Washington answered. "You'll meet her later."

"Hey. Did your cousins get those jobs here?" Texas asked Washington.

"You've met them. What do you think?" Washington replied.

"Well you know I'm biased." Texas said. "I mean after—"

Before she could continue, two people arguing over a crate came out from behind a bunch over crates. "I told you idiot. We have to put this crate over there." One of them said.

"I need this crate to hide behind." The other said.

"I already told you idiot. Everyone can see you."

"They can't see me. I can't see them."

"That's cause you're looking at the crate idiot."

"Oh." He said releasing the crate, causing the other person to fall back.

"What did you do that for idiot?!" The other person said. The idiot wasn't even listening. He was staring at Tarius and the others.

After a few seconds his eyes lit up with recognition. "Hey look who it is." He said pointing at Tarius.

The other person looked up, and his face lit up with a huge smile. "Hey, Tarius. Long time, no see."

"Lavernius. How have you been?" Tarius replied.

Before he could respond, the idiot stepped forward and said "Yes. He is Lavernius, and I'm Michael."

"Yes, you are Michael. And he's Lavernius." Tarius said, a huge smile on his face. He had always enjoyed the company of these two.

"How many times have I told you to call me by my last name?!" Lavernius said.

"Yeah. He prefers being called Tucker. It sounds less dorky." Michael said.

"Wait wait wait!" Ashley said. "Who are you people?!"

"I am Lavernius Tucker." Tucker said.

"And I am Micheal J. Caboose." Michael said. "And I hate babies!"

"Ignore him." Tucker stated. "He's an idiot."

"Unlike Washington though, he actually likes AIs." Tarius said.

"In short, they're my idiot cousins who needed a job." Washington said.

"Which one's the bigger idiot?" Kaiden said jokingly.

" .It'sequal." Texas, Washington, and Tarius all said at the same time.

"Are you kidding it's obviously Michael!" Washington argued. "He's killed how many of his own teammates?"

"As good as that argument is, you seem to be forgetting who unloaded a round in my ass." Texas replied.

"Bow-chicka-bow-wow." Tucker said.

"What did you just say?" Texas said.

"They are obviously equally as dumb as each other." Tarius said, not realizing that Texas was getting very angry.

"Yeah. I can see that." Ashley said.

"Me too." Kaiden said.

"Whatever. Hey Texas, you all right?" Washington said.

Texas was completely pissed and looked ready to kill Tucker.

"Texas?" Tarius asked.

"Say that one more time." Texas said to Tucker.

"That's what's wrong." Tarius said.

"What?" Kaiden asked.

"She's stuck in a memory." Tarius said. When everyone stared at him confused he explained. "A lot of memories of large significance, when she remembers them, bring the feelings she felt at that time. I thought we succeeded in locking that memory away but I guess seeing Tucker has brought it back."

"What memory?" Kaiden asked.

"Oh, just the one where I shot her in the ass." Tucker said.

That did it. Texas suddenly launched at Tucker knocking him down and then picked him up and chucked him off the edge. As he was falling and screaming, Texas ran after him and jumped off the edge to follow him. Shortly after she had jumped after him, they heard him scream again. Washington, thinking he had no chance, ran to jump after Tucker and Texas.

"I'll talk to u later Tarius!" He called. "Maybe we can discuss Georgia."

"We'll discuss something else! They still only know that whatever happened to Georgia, had something to do with a jetpack."

"Just go stop Texas." Anderson said, coming out of the ship.

"Yes, sir." Washington said, doing a nice salute before purposefully falling backwards over the edge.

"Shouldn't we be helping to stop her?" Ashley asked.

"If anyone can stop her, it's Washington." Tarius said.

"Is that really his name?" Kaiden asked.

"No. He and Texas were part of a spec ops team from years ago. It was disbanded and even the name was declared beyond classified. But they were allowed to keep their code names and their ranks. Most people use their code names. The only question is if they ever had real names."

"They do." Anderson said.

"I know." Tarius said. "Texas told me hers."

"Bet you don't know the rest of theirs though." Anderson said.

"And you do?" Tarius replied.

"I do." Anderson replied. "I have access to almost all the records of their spec ops group."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep bragging old man." Tarius replied.

"I'm sorry, but can we please get moving? I'm pretty sure we have a damn politican to talk to." Ashley complained.

"She's right. We should really get moving." Anderson said. They headed into the elevator and started down.

As Washington reached the bottom under the Normandy, it was easy to follow Texas. The destruction wasn't as bad as last time but there was more room to move around and less stuff to run into. By the time he reached them Tucker was lucky to be alive. "Alright Texas, I think he gets it."

When Texas turned around, Washington wasn't as surprised to see her eyes as anyone else would have been. Her eyes glowing black just like Tarius's glowed red. He knew about her eyes though. They all did. Well not Tarius. He didn't know about her eyes. But then again he didn't know about his either. Or at least he didn't understand his. But then again, they all came with side effects. Tarius's he didn't know but Texas's he did. This was her side effect, memories brought feelings with them. At least she didn't have to deal with a VI having been used in an attempt to strengthen her abilities. He let his eyes change like hers. He'd have to deal with his side effects later but he'd need his abilities to deal with her. His eyes glowing green, he stepped forward to deal with her.

"Texas. Calm down." He said.

"Go away." She replied.

"You know I can't do that." He said. "Don't make me stop you."

Instead of replying, she charged him. Before she could even touch him he said one word.

"Sleep." And then she fell.

They arrived at the ambassador's office late but he still wasn't there.

"Guess he was planning on making us wait." Anderson said.

After he said that, Udina walked into the room. Instead of saying anything to them, he went straight to the hologram communicator. He pushed a button and the council popped up. He then started a long conversation with them about the meeting that was planned.

"Guess he's still planning on making us wait." Tarius said.

Udina then finished arguing with the council and turned to them. "Captain Anderson. I see you've brought half your crew with you." He said.

"Just the ground team from Eden Prime, in case you have any questions." Anderson said.

"I have the reports. I assume they're accurate." He responded.

"Well you know what happens when you assume." Tarius said.

"Really commander?" Anderson said, he then turned back to Udina. "They're accurate. So it looks like you managed to get us a meeting with the council."

"Yes. They were not happy about it. Saren is one of their top agents, they don't like him being accused of treason." Udina said.

"Saren's a threat to every human in the galaxy." Shepard said.

"Settle down commander. You've done enough already to jeopardize your candidacy for the spectres. Eden Prime was meant to prove you could get the job done. Instead, Nihlus is dead and the beacon was destroyed."

"That's Saren's fault, not his." Anderson said.

"Then we better hope the C-Sec investigator turns up evidence to support our accusations. Otherwise the council might use this as an excuse to keep you out of the spectres." Udina said, annoying the crap out of Tarius. "Anderson come with me, I want to go over some things before the meeting. Shepard, you and the others can meet us at Citadel tower level 2. I'll get you the clearance to get in." He then left the room with Anderson.

"And that's why I hate politicians." Ashley said.

"That's great chief." Tarius said. "Lets get moving."

They headed out the door toward the tower. On their way though, they ran into Avina. "Hello, my name is Avina. I'm the Citadel's VI and can answer any questions you have."

"I have a question." Tarius said. "Why are you so annoying?"

"I'm sorry. I am not programmed to answer that question."

"Of course you're not." Tarius said. "Goodbye."

They then walked away before she could say anything else. As they walked through the presidium, they saw many interesting things. A turian talking to an asari. A human talking physics with a salarian. And even a batarian making out with an asari. Too which Ashley made a gagging noise. Once they reached the bottom of Citadel tower, they saw three things. One was a keeper nearby. Another was the avina terminal next to the keeper. And the last thing was a scaled down version of a mass relay. Ashley immediately asked what was that pointing at the keeper. Tarius ignored her and went to the railing to look at the mass relay statue. As he was standing there avina went to talk.

"Hi, would you like some information on the mass relay statue." Avina asked.

"Shut up." Tarius said.

"Amazing isn't it?" Kaiden said.

"I guess. Don't know what's so special about it." Ashley said.

"Well it symbolizes the rise of the Prothean civilization to power. The protheans really must have understood the importance of their creation of the mass relays." Tarius said.

"That's deep commander." Kaiden said.

"What are you talking about? I read it off the brochure." Tarius said.

"What brochure?" Ashley asked.

"The one I pulled up on my omni-tool." Shepard said. "Now lets get moving. We'll have time for site seeing later."

With that, they got on the elevator. Since it was kind of slow, Tarius took the time to think about Washington. He looked a lot younger than a 48 year old. That didn't surprise Tarius though, because Washington and family had always aged nice. Plus a few years back Washington had begun to age slower. Tarius didn't know why but he had.

"I hope the council doesn't ask me any questions." Ashley said.

"We gave our reports. I'm sure they won't ask us anything." Kaiden replied.

"Are you kidding me? They'll be completely concentrated on me." Tarius joked.

"Why because you're such a danger?" Kaiden asked.

"No, because i'm so very handsome." Tarius answered.

And with that they all began laughing. As the elevator door opened they were still laughing and everyone started staring at them. They didn't care and kept laughing as they walked out of the elevator. They didn't go far before they saw two turians arguing.

"Saren's hiding something I know it! Give me more time. Stall them!" One of the turians said.

"Stall the council?! Don't be ridiculous! Your investigation is over Garrus." The other turian said and then walked away.

Garrus stood there for a few more seconds before turning to talk to Shepard and the others who were walking up to him. "Commander Shepard. Garrus Vakarian. I'm the C-Sec officer in charge of investigating Saren."

He put his hand out for Shepard to shake, and after a moment he did. "And i care why?" He asked.

"Just thought you'd like to know that I agree that Saren must be up to something. Most of his records were classified, so I couldn't get any hard evidence on him." Garrus said.

"I just hope they'll send me after the basterd." Tarius replied.

"Me too. Anyway, I have to follow up a lead. I'll see later." Garrus said.

"Perhaps." Tarius replied.

As Garrus headed for the elevator, Shepard and the others started to head to their meeting with the council. They started around the fountain which as Tarius looked at it he couldn't help thinking that it looked pretty. They headed up the stairs and towards Anderson who was standing on some more stairs leading up to the council. All around there were people of different species talking about politics. They headed up the stairs and reached Anderson.

"Come on, the meetings about to start." He said, and they headed toward the first meeting that would decide Shepard's future.

Author's Note:

Sorry this took so long to get up. This chapter required a lot of thinking and planning. The next chapter should hopefully take less time. So in this chapter I had a few more references and more people from the list. Hopefully you'll get them. I brought in a character created by my brother who also has a story he's writing that's a mass effect fan-fiction. He's BlueSpartan107 and I advise checking his story, Mass Effect: Resolution, out. I also dropped a hint as to how Scarlai was formed in the Mass Effect universe.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4: The Dreams of Many

Kasumi was watching the strange soldiers who had been following her for weeks. As far as she could tell, they had a job for her. Yet from what she could tell, sending soldiers after her was a terrible business choice. Well, bad business or not, she hadn't had a good job ever since Keiji's death, and people were starting to forget who she was. So, instead of listening to her gut, she started down toward the soldiers to hear this proposition.

Seargent Zach Cousland, was very annoyed that he was being sent on this errand when he joined Cerberus for combat, NOT to hire thieves that he didn't even know they really existed or not. All he'd been told, were the rumors. And all they said was that this girl was very good at her job.

"If she's so good, why doesn't she prove it." He mumbled under his breath.

"I already have." Kasumi said, becoming visible in front of him.

"What do you—" Zach began, but before he could finish, his pants fell down. That's when he noticed the belt in her hand. And the guns of all his men. "How the hell?"

"I'm the best at what I do." Kasumi said. "Now what do you want?"

"My employer has requested that I hire you to steal a certain person's weapon."

"Whose weapon?" Kasumi asked.

"I'm not allowed to say aloud. All the information you need is on this osd." Zach said while handing her an osd. "And that concludes our business transaction." As Zach goes to turn around he finally pulls his pants up and grabs his belt from Kasumi.

"One more thing." Kasumi said. "Tell your employer next time, not to send soldiers. It's bad for business."

"What makes you say there'll be a next time?" Zach replied.

"Oh, there'll be a next time alright." Kasumi responded before turning invisible.

"Sir, she took our guns." One of the soldiers replied.

"Why would she—" that's when he realized where they were standing. "Well that's not cool."

"What do you mean sir?"

"We're standing in the middle of a thresher maw nest." Zach answered just as the thresher maw burst out of the ground nearby.

The first thing Tarius saw was the twenty foot Saren hologram. _"Crap."_ The voice said. And Tarius knew why. He knew that Saren was very charismatic, and that he was the best spectre the council had. So he knew they were more likely to listen to him than Shepard. His attention then went to Udina who was arguing with the council. Tarius knew it wouldn't get him anywhere, but it was fun to watch. So instead of saying anything, he just stood back and watched.

"The geth attack is of some concern, but there is no evidence to support that Saren was involved." The asari councilor said.

"The investigation by Citadel security turned up no evidence to support your accusations." The turian councilor added.

"A witness saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood." Udina countered.

"We've seen the reports." The salarian councilor cut in. "The testament of one traumatized doc worker is not compelling evidence."

"Stupid politicians." Tarius mumbled under his breath.

"Something you want to add commander?" The turian councilor said.

"Oh, just that you're all idiots." Tarius replied.

"Commander!" Udina said shocked.

"Udina!" Tarius replied smiling.

"Is this how you plan to defend yourself Shepard?" Saren said.

"No." Tarius said simply. "I just know you will find a way to turn the council against me."

"What's there to turn them against?" Saren replied. "If they haven't already decided you're a waste of time they'll soon see it."

"That's enough." Anderson said as Shepard went to reply. "We're here to prove to the council that Saren is guilty, not that you're a complete ass... they know that already."

"Yes, but unless you have more proof, we see no evidence to support your claims." The asari councilor said.

"There's still the matter of Shepards vision." Anderson said. "It may have been triggered by the beacon."

"Are we allowing dreams into evidence now?" Saren said. "Cause if so, I had a doozie of one last night."

Tarius's first thought was not that Saren was making a joke. His first thought was, Did he just say doozie?

Meanwhile, Saren continued. "In this dream, a giant squid, or I think that's what it's called honestly the name of the animals on you humans's home planet does not concern me."

After that Shepard began to lose control. Saren had practically just admitted his guilt and the council was unaffected. With that, his anger boiled just like his blood. Saren continued, not realizing this.

"Oh yes. This giant squid asked me to help it, practically begged. In the end my helpful nature demanded I help it. So I asked it how it wanted me to help it. It said 'Don't let that human in the spectres, or you will regret it.' And when I awoke, I decided it was my subconscious warning me that this human would be a failure and would disgrace the name of the spectres. Therefore, I declare that this human should not be allowed in the spectres."

"What?!" Tarius screamed.

"You can't do that! That's not your decision!" Udina exclaimed as Anderson grabbed Tarius's arm to hold him back as his biotics flared and his eyes glowed red.

"Shepard's admission into the spectres is not the purpose of this meeting." The asari councilor declared.

"That's cause there is no purpose of this meeting!" Saren declared.

"Yes there is!" Tarius yelled, losing his control. "And it's to prove you're behind what happened at Eden Prime!"

"You have no proof!" Saren yelled right back.

"I need no proof!" Tarius replied. "It's written all over your face! And if the council are to blind to see it, then they've already made their decision!"

Silence crept over the council chambers and dragged out until it became almost unbearable. Finally the asari councilor spoke up, "Do you have any last things to say?"

"Other than the fact that you're a bunch of dumbasses who need to pull their heads out of their asses? No, nothing relevant."

The asari and salarian councilor turned to the turian councilor who shook his head so furiously that it caused Tarius to have two thoughts. The first being that if he shook his head any harder then it would come off his shoulders. The second being that he'd pay money to see that.

"We find no evidence to suggest that Saren was involved in the attack on Eden Prime." The asari councilor piped up, interupting Tarius's train of thought. "Ambassador, your petition to have Saren removed from the spectres is denied."

"I'm glad to see justice was served." Saren said before the hologram of him deactivated.

With that Anderson was left defeated, Udina annoyed, and Tarius pissed off. While Tarius and Anderson walked away, Udina stood there as if to say something, and then decided to walk away.

"It was a mistake bringing you in there." Udina said.

Tarius turned around to reply, thinking he was talking to him, only to have Udina walk right by him and point at Anderson. "You and Saren have too much history. It made the council completely turn on us."

"Hey, it's not his fault their assholes." Tarius cut in."

"And YOU!" Udina whipped around and pointed a finger at Shepard. "Have you never heard of acting civil?!"

"Heard of it don't much care for it." Tarius replied.

"Well you'd better start if we're going to turn this around."

"We?" Tarius said.

"Yes." Udina said. "You're going to find evidence, while I try to get us another meeting with the council."

"What?!" Tarius exclaimed. "After that disaster?!"

"Yes. Now I suggest you speak with Harkon. He's a contact i have in c-sec." Udina said.

""No way! Harkon's a drunk. He was suspended for drinking on the job recently." Anderson exclaimed.

"He'll still have info you might need. Now come along Anderson, we have work to do." Udina then walked away.

"Look, if want good info talk to Barla Von. He's an agent for the Shadow Broker." Anderson said. "And though i hate to admit it, Udina's right Harkon might have info as well."

"Then I guess I'll talk to them both." Tarius said, obviously annoyed.

"Good. Is there anything else?" Anderson replied. "I have a little time before Udina gets angry."

"No. Nothing." Tarius answered.

"Alright. Well then, I'd better get moving." Anderson said and then walked away.

Tarius stood there for a few seconds before he left as well. He started walking down the stairs when Ashley spoke up.

"What's that salarian doing with that keeper?"

"I don't know. Why don't we find out?" Tarius said with obvious fake enthusiasm.

They walked up to the salarian causing him to jump in surprise. "What? Huh? Who's that?"

"Your mother." Tarius said with obvious sarcasm. "I'm Commander Shepard and I give absolutely no shits about what you have to say. But my allies apparently do, so what are you doing?"

"Doing? Uh... nothing." The salarian responded.

"Tell me what you're doing before I find a krogan and feed you to it!" Shepard said.

"Wait! Wait! I'm just... wait!" He turned around and picked something up that he'd dropped when he jumped. "See?"

"Is that piece of crap supposed to tell me something?" Shepard said seriously annoyed.

"It's a scanner. I'm using it to scan the keepers." The salarian said.

"Then why are you so jumpy?" Ashley asked.

"Well, it's not, strictly speaking, uh legal." The salarian responded.

"And why's that?" Kaiden said.

"Well, the rules say that we're not supposed to disturb the keepers. I don't think my scanning really disturbs them, but the guards might not see it the same way." The salarian responded.

"I'm not worried about any damn guards. Why don't you give it to me?" Tarius said.

"Are you sure? Well, okay." The salarian said. "Thank you."

The salarian then walked away after handing Tarius the scanner. Tarius finished scanning the keepers in the council chambers and then headed for the elevator. Once the were inside and started down, he stopped holding in his anger. With a biotic punch, he hit the window surprisingly not shattering it.

"Are you okay sir?" Kaiden asked.

"Kaiden, you're a good man and soldier. So unless you want to die, I suggest you shut up." Tarius said.

"I'm not paying for that." Ashley said.

They were quiet the rest of the way to the bottom. When they got out of the elevator, they only stopped for a second to scan the keeper next to the avina terminal. They then moved on and started over to speak with Barla Von. Upon crossing the bridge, they saw a batarian, a turian, and two asari, staring at a news report. When they walked up to check it out, they discovered it was a report on their meeting with the council. "Wow. Word travels fast here." Ashley said.

"Shhh!" The turian said.

The screen showed a reporter talking about the meeting. "Upon being asked if he had anything to say, Commander Shepard decided to start his argument by calling the council idiots." After saying this, a video of the meeting with the council after Saren spoke of his dream came on. "He then proceeded to freak out on the Spectre, whose name remains classified, and the council about absolutely nothing, calling them idiots again and making a complete ass out of himse—"

Before the reporter could finish his sentence, Tarius shot the screen with his pistol causing almost everyone to look at him. The only person who didn't was the batarian who was laughing.

"What are you laughing about?" Tarius asked him pissed.

"You, asshole." The batarian replied. "You haven't changed a bit."

"What are you talking about?" Shepard said.

"You know what, Butcher." The batarian said, turning around to reveal the batarian who had made out with the asari earlier. What they hadn't realized earlier was the big scar that ran the length of his face on the right side.

Immediately, memories flashed in Tarius's mind. Memories of Torfan. Of woman and children. And of soldiers. Both batarian and... human. Then one picture stuck. One of a batarian child who had attacked him after he killed the leader. A child, with a huge bleeding cut down the right side of his face from Shepards blade.

"You." He said through clenched teeth. "I knew I made a mistake." He had left this batarian alive when he was a child.

"Yes. At first I would have agreed." The batarian replied.

"At first?" Shepard said, barely holding back his anger.

"Yes. Originally, I had come here planning to kill you." The batarian replied. "But then I met—"

"Me." One of the asari spoke up. "He met me. Sorlia Trivols." She said holding out her hand.

Shepard shook it reluctantly. "So, what? You fell in love?" He said.

"Yes." The batarian replied. "She was the first person in a long time to see past my scar." He said while she smiled at him. "She even helped me see past it. I even think I see why you killed my father."

"And why's that?" Tarius replied.

"Cause he helped plan Elysium." The batarian said plainly. "And also for almost the same reason I came after you." He gave Tarius a stare that said he knew much. "You thought he had information on your father's killer. Which, he might have but I don't know. If you want my advice, forget your quest for revenge. It will only bring you pain." He turned to walk away and stopped. "And hurt those around you."

As he continued going to walk away, Tarius took a step forward. Sorlia Trivols and the other asari blocked him. "Wait." He said. The batarian stopped and looked at him surprised. "What's your name?"

"Why do you care?" The batarian replied.

"Because I don't want to remember a child in pain and full of rage. I want to remember a man who had the strength to put aside anger and revenge." Shepard answered.

The batarian stood there a moment, and then decided to do what he thought was best. "Salise Talai. And I hope you find peace one day like I have." He then turned and walked away, the asari following.

Shepard stood there for another few seconds before realizing that he didn't have any urge to kill the batarian. "You know. He has a point."

"What?" Tarius turned to see the turian standing in front of him.

"You need to let go. I can see it in your eyes. You regret everything you did." The turian said. "If I were you. I'd let it go." He then turned and walked away.

"Are you okay sir?" Kaiden asked him.

"Kaiden, what did I—" He stopped. When he started again, his tone had changed. "I mean, I'm fine. But thanks for asking." They then continued into Barla Von's place to speak with him.

When the turian reached a dark alley where no one could see him, he slipped in and began changing form. When he was finished, he stood as a human man in a trench coat with blonde hair. He used this form often, though when he spoke to Tarius in his dreams, he took on no apparent shape. And yet, Tarius saw him as a man, about in his late forties, with black hair that was about two inches long, a goatee with small streaks of gray in it, and a stern but loving face. At first he thought this peculiar until he realized that he saw his eyes as brown, and then it clicked. Tarius's mind had created the Stranger as a recreation of Tarius's father, a man who had taught him much. A man who had even shown others much. In the end, he decided it was best that be the form Tarius sees. For it was Thoran Shepard, who had shown the Stranger the truth of his son. Thoran, whose death had caused the revealing of Scarlai, of evil, in Tarius. But also, the revealing of good.

When Texas woke up, the first thing she noticed was Washington standing over her. The second thing she noticed was that she was in a bed. The final thing, that she was in Washington's apartment, in her underwear. "Where are my clothes?" She asked him.

"In the other room, if you're talking about your armor. If not though, probably back on Eden Prime." He said with a smile.

"I meant my armor. And if this is your best plan to get me in bed, then that's pretty sad." Texas replied, only smiling at the end.

"I had to use a mind tap. I knocked you out. Besides, I didn't think you were the shy type." He replied.

"I'm not but—"

"But you always feel exposed after an episode." He finished for her.

"Yes." She replied. "So if you used a mind tap, doesn't that mean that you have to deal with your side effects?"

"Hey, a couple more years of holding off on aging. Why not?"

"Because you were about to start aging again." Texas said.

Washington hesitated. "Well, my choices were pretty limited. It was either let you destroy the place, or do a mind tap." He shrugged. "Seemed pretty obvious."

"So, I was being a bitch?" Texas asked.

"Well when aren't you a bitch?" Washington replied smiling.

"Just bring me my armor asshole." Texas said.

Washington left the room and then came back with her armor. After handing it to her, he left the room and closed the door. Once she was dressed and had her clothes on, she headed out. "So, how's Michael doing?" Texas asked.

"Just a few scratches. As usual." He said. "But more importantly, when did you use your abilities?"

"Eden Prime. While holding off the geth. I had no choice. I knew I'd pay for it later though." Texas said.

"Which you did." Washington responded.

"Yeah." Texas said, her mind off in the distance. "Well, I better get going."

"Where are you in such a hurry to get to?" He asked her.

"I have a meeting with Hackett." She said, on her way out the door.

"Well tell him I said hi." He said. "He never writes anymore."

"Yeah, whatever." She said heading out the door. She was already late for her meeting so she figured she'd stop for some food. She was starving.

Saren had just finished his meeting with the council. He was both annoyed and satisfied that the meeting had gone so well. He was satisfied because he had been able to use his dream to make a point. Sure he had altered a few things but it didn't matter. Of course, in the dream he was compelled to protect the "squid" and not asked to but that wasn't important... was it? "Of course it's not. No one controls me." And yet, there was the doubt. That's what had annoyed him. At one point, he had wanted the council to know the truth. He had wanted them to stop him. And yet, a moment later it was gone. "What's going on?" He said. Which was exactly what he hoped his research on Virmire would uncover. He still hadn't gotten a report from the geth he sent to check on his research. All he knew was that the asari who had recently replaced the last egghead working on the project, was unnerved to discover that her first subject was the man she replaced. He had no idea if she had made any progress since she left. No matter. He continued down the corridor, unaware that he would soon be informed of a quarian that somehow had proof of his involvement in Eden Prime.

Tali had just arrived on the citadel, when a turian assassin took a shot at her. She was on her way to deliver evidence to the council that Saren was a traitor, when the assassin, dressed as a dock worker, pulled a gun out and started firing. She ran, but not before a bullet grazed her arm. Immediately, she knew that something was up. A moment later she realized that he must be using polonium rounds. "Smart bosh'tet." She mumbled under her breath.

She kept running until she reached a desk clerk for the councilors. Unfortunately, once he saw her he stood up and said "Get the hell out of here suit rat. Before I call Citadel security."

After he said that, she knew he wouldn't listen so she left. She wandered around for a little while getting worse as she went until she found herself somewhere in the wards and realized she was lost. She looked around but due to her weakened state she couldn't remember how she had gotten there. She walked a little more and found a clinic which she immediately headed to and hoped there would be someone who would help her. She was lucky.

The last thing Dr. Michel had expected to see when she woke up that morning was the quarian who came stumbling into her office. She hadn't been expecting it, but she was prepared for it. She was prepared for anything. She immediately sprung into action, getting the supplies she'd need to help the quarian. She didn't ask a name or if the quarian would have the money to pay her. She just told her sit and got straight to work. By the time she was done, she had the full story of what happened and decided to send her to Fist because he was an agent for the Shadow Broker. Little did she know, that she almost sent her to her doom.

The first thing Shepard noticed when he entered the office was the volus standing behind a desk at the back of the room. The second thing he noticed was the krogan bodyguard standing in the shadows to the right. The last thing he noticed, was that he'd seen this office before.

"Commander Shepard." The volus behind the desk said. "I've been expecting you. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Barla Von."

"I know." Tarius said. "We've met."

"Have we?" Barla Von responded. "I don't remember this."

"I would guess you wouldn't." Tarius said. "I mean after all, I was only a kid then whose father had decided to show him the Citadel."

"Ah yes, your father was a client for me." He paused. "In more than one way."

"So he used both of your services. Am I supposed to care?" Tarius said.

"Oh, so you don't want the money he left you?"

"What?"

"Your father left you money along some other objects."

"Other objects?"

"We'll get to that soon. For now, let's concentrate on why you came here." He then type something into the console in front of him. "Okay, so you need info on Saren, something to help you prove he's not innocent."

"Yes." Tarius said even though it wasn't a question.

"Well, you'll be interested to hear that the Shadow Broker also wants Saren taken down. In fact, he's sent a bounty hunter to deal with an agent that betrayed him." Barla Von said. "This agent, the fool that he is, betrayed the Broker for Saren. Now this bounty hunter, a krogan named Wrex, tryed to get in to kill this agent, a human named Fist, and got arrested by Citadel security. Maybe this krogan can help you get to Fist, who can probably help you prove saren's guilt."

"Well, I'll consider taking on Fist but who says I need a krogan's help?"

"Not me. It was just a suggestion." Barla Von said. "Now lets get to the things your father left you. The first thing of course was the money. A total of two million, three hundred fifty-four thousand, seven hundred ninety-three credits."

"That's a lot of money." Kaiden said. "Where'd he get it all?"

"My dad worked a lot of jobs. He helped a lot of people. They always compensated him for it, even if he didn't want any."

"Yes, in the end all that money went here." Barla Von said.

"So you're rich?" Ashley asked.

"Does it matter?" Tarius said.

"No. Not really." Ashley replied.

"So what else did he leave me?" Tarius asked.

"Well, let's see. He left you this pistol." Barla Von said, pulling out a pistol that was obviously heavily modded. "And these schematics, though I don't know what for. He wouldn't say and he gave me exact instructions not to look."

Tarius took them both, taking a few moments to observe the pistol. His father's pistol. His pistol. "I know what the schematics are for, they're not your concern." Tarius said. "Now is there anything else or can I go?"

"There is one more thing." Barla Von said. "A ring. I didn't know why but he said you'd understand."

When Tarius said the ring, he did understand but he didn't tell anyone. "I understand but it's not your business. All you need to known is that it was my father's and now it's mine."

"No argument here." Barla Von said.

"Good." Tarius said, slipping the ring on his finger on the outside of his armor for now. "Well if that's all, we'll be going."

"Yes, it's best you get going. You may have a long day ahead of you." Barla Von said. "Goodbye Commander."

Tarius, Kaiden, and Ashley headed out the door. They began walking to the elevator to the wards to find Harkon. And to take the next step on the dark road to stopping Saren and saving the galaxy.

Author's Note:

Sorry this took so long to write, I've had a little writer's block and I've had to decide what scenes go where and how they'll play out. It's taken a lot of work and time and planning. Hopefully the next chapter will come quicker but no promises. I wanna put the description of Tarius in the next chapter but I haven't seen what he looks like in a while and we still haven't transfered all our memory from our old Xbox to our new one so I can't get ahold of his look yet. On top of that, I've begun work on my pre Dragon Age Origins fan fiction. It's going to be kind of short but I suggest you check it out. I'm going to be switching between that and this as I do the next couple chapters. So hopefully soon our memory will be transfered and I can look at Tarius. But until then, enjoy this chapter and enjoy my other story.


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